The Tale of the Green Santa
by starry-oblivion
Summary: Raphael and Donatello break a handmade ornament that means a lot to Michelangelo and Splinter. Clearly, the only way to be mature adults about this is to attempt to replace it rather than just fess up to it.


"Mikey, I've told ya a thousand times, quit with the sugary Christmas music!"

"Hey, don't go yelling at me just because you're tone deaf, all right, bro?" Michelangelo snapped back. "After all, that's the only excuse I can think of for somebody not digging Taylor Swift singing 'Santa Baby.' Come _on_, have you _seen_ that girl?"

"No, but I sure as shell have heard her!" Raphael growled back, taking another step towards Michelangelo, who was sitting at Donatello's work station. "Now keep it down. If I can hear ya over my headphones, then you're being too loud!"

"Maybe Santa oughta buy you a pair of better headphones, then," Michelangelo cracked, returning to wrapping up the small box he had in his hands. "Either that, or some earplugs. Because Taylor's not shutting up anytime soon."

"We'll see about that!" Raphael growled out, stomping towards the computer. Without another word, he ripped the plug out of the laptop, from which the offensive music had been blaring all afternoon.

"Really?" Michelangelo asked dryly, staring at him uncomprehendingly. "You pull the plug on a laptop with a full battery and expect the music to magically stop? And you call _me_ the dumb one." Hearing the growl coming from his brother, he held his hands up, shaking his head. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, bro. All joking aside, I get your message loud and clear."

"You do?" Raphael asked, surprised.

"Totally," came the reply as the other turtle stood up. "You don't want me blaring my music all day and all night. According to the battery life, you only want me doing that for the next three hours or so. Consider it done."

By the time Raphael realized what had just happened, Michelangelo scooped up the laptop and the gift he'd been working on and darted away, somehow managing to make the music even louder as he did so. Fed up, Raphael took off after him, a stream of colorful language flying from his mouth. He didn't even see Donatello until he crashed right into him, knocking them both to the floor and sending the box he was carrying crashing to the floor with an ominous tinkling sound.

"Oh no," Donatello gasped, quickly pushing Raphael off of him.

Groaning as he sat up, Raphael frowned as he cast a sideways glance at the box. "What the heck were ya carrying?" he asked, ignoring the fact that he just _knew_ he was going to come out of this feeling like a putz. "Fine china?"

"I was bringing out the old Christmas ornaments," Donatello replied as he opened up the cardboard box and sifted through the contents. "I thought, since Leo and Master Splinter would be back from their retreat in time for the holidays, I'd get out all the old decorations and put them up." He sifted through them for a few moments before murmuring, "They all look okay, but I could have sworn I heard-… oh, _no_."

"What?" Raphael asked, standing up and figuring it couldn't be so bad, if he didn't wreck _all_ of the ornaments. "The majority of 'em are still intact, right?"

"Yeah, but…" Donatello murmured before reaching both hands into the box. He carefully withdrew what looked like randomly colored shards of ceramic, frowning down at the pieces before showing them off to Raphael, who looked puzzled for only a few moments before realization seeped onto his face.

"Aw, jeez," he muttered. "Is that the ugly ornament Mikey made for Splinter back when we were kids? The green Santa?"

"It might have been ugly," Donatello agreed, "but Splinter loved this thing." He tried fitting the broken pieces together, only to frown even more as he realized, "There'll be too many cracks to make it look good if we glue it together."

"What about if we paint over the cracks?"

"You can tell the fresh paint from the old paint," came the reply. "And I'm no artist, so I'd just end up messing it up. Man, Mikey and Splinter are going to be so upset."

"No they ain't," Raphael insisted, reaching out for the broken ornament. "Because they ain't gonna know about it."

"Oh, come on, Raph," Donatello mentioned indignantly. "When has Mikey _not_ made a point of making sure that everyone knows he made this thing with his 'own two little hands?' And Splinter's always liked it; you've seen the way he smiles when he sees it."

"Who'd ever think a green Santa was _cute_?" Raphael spat out. Shaking his head, he walked over to the wastebasket, dumping the debris in there and covering it up with some paper. "Look, it's no big deal. Mikey just painted the thing. So all we have to do is go to a ceramics store, find the same ornament, and give it the same ugly paintjob Mikey had given it. It's a done deal."

"'We?'" Donatello asked blandly. "What's this 'we' business? _You're_ the one the bumped into me and broke the dumb thing."

"And you're the one that walked in the path 'a me and Mikey fighting," Raphael shot back. "Which one of us is the bigger bird brain, huh?"

"Look, you're missing the point," Donatello brought up. "Assuming we can even _find_ a ceramics shop with an owner near-sighted enough to not blink an eye at selling an ornament to a pair of turtles, the chances of us finding that exact same ornament are almost as slim as the chance of us picking up the _exact_ paints that Mikey had used on this one. And once we add the veneer to it, it's going to look too new to pass."

"First, thanks for coming with me on this 'we' business," Raphael replied with a smirk. "And it ain't gonna be as hard as all that. We can ask Casey or April to get us the ornament. And chances are, Mikey's still got the same paint he used back then, so we can just swipe 'em, and color it in."

"And what about the veneer?"

"You're a genius," Raphael scoffed. "If you can't figure out some way to tack on a finishing without giving it that fresh-paint shine, then I'm gonna have to change my mind on that."

Sighing and just _knowing _that this was going to be a bad idea, Donatello looked down and reluctantly agreed to help.

* * *

Surprisingly, it wasn't that difficult to find a very similar ornament at the local arts store.

Aside from looking like he had some sort of skin condition that rendered him green, these little Santas were fairly common, much to Raphael's surprise. Whether he was green-skinned or not, he looked more like a gremlin clutching a sack than jolly old Saint Nick. He frowned down at the bag Casey had brought him, within which a half-dozen of these generic ornaments were so carefully wrapped in newspaper by a sales associate that most of them had their heads or limbs poking out.

"Good grief," he muttered under his breath as he cleared a table and unwrapped an ornament, laying down the newspaper to keep from messing up the table. "Parents should be telling their kids that you come down their chimneys if they've been _bad_."

"Hey, I found the paints," Donatello called from Michelangelo's room. The door slammed closed and he soon jumped down from the top landing and into sight, clutching an armful of various tubes and brushes. "You sure we'll have enough time to get this done?"

"Are you kidding?" Raphael scoffed, picking up one of the tubes as Donatello rested them upon the table. "Casey took him to see _The Hobbit_. That movie's like a billion hours long. If we need some extra time, I'll just text Case and tell 'im to spring for a pizza or something, while they're at it." Holding up the tube he'd been observing, he said, "I've got the green. You wanna do the honors, or should I be the one to make Kris Kringle look like he's had some past due milk and cookies?"

Making a contemplative sort of sound, Donatello plucked the tube from Raphael's fingers, observing the labeling before he unscrewed the cap and shook his head. "I was afraid of this. This isn't the green that was on the ornament."

"Oh man, you mean he's got _more_ of that dumb paint somewhere in that mess of a room?"

"If only it were that simple," Donatello murmured. "If there's one thing Michelangelo's particular about, it's keeping all of his art supplies in one place. These were all the paints I found in his case. Which means… he got that color by mixing."

"… say what?"

"Mixing," came the response. "You can mix paints together to form other colors. Most artists use white or black to come up with a darker or a lighter shade, since that tends to be cheaper than buying a new tube of paint for every occasion-"

"I know what mixing is, genius," Raphael snapped. "I just mean how the shell are we supposed to mix to get the exact shade of that dumb ornament?"

"Trial and error, I suppose," Donatello replied with a thoughtful shrug. "Hopefully we both remember close enough what it looks like, and replicating it won't be much of an issue."

"Yeah right," Raphael muttered as Donatello moved to the kitchen. "We're the guys who couldn't even settle on which color of garland looked best. We'll still be squabbling over getting the shade just right by the time the _next_ Hobbit movie comes out."

"They're making more of them?" Donatello asked, surprised. "Really? Don't they have other things they should be making movies about? A _good_ Sherlock Holmes movie, maybe?"

"I'm _not_ getting into this argument with you," Raphael declared. "Just finish getting your snack and hurry 'n help me along."

"I'm not getting a snack," Donatello answered wryly, returning with a paper plate and a cup of water. "I'm getting our palette so we can work on mixing, and getting some water so we can wash the brushes between colors. Don't you know anything about painting?"

"I know what I like," Raphael murmured sullenly. "And what I'd like is for this to be New Year's already so we won't have to worry about none 'a this."

Quietly grumbling with one another, the two turtles began going to work, with Donatello quietly reminding himself that it's not too different from chemistry, only if he gets his mixing wrong, he doesn't stand a chance of having it blow up in his face. Even that couldn't stop him from tensing whenever he added too much white, or too much green in an effort to make it darker, or too much black and having it come out _too_ dark. It really didn't help matters when they both considered that Michelangelo had likely just mixed his paints at random until coming up with a green color that he likely thought was "kinda cool." In fact, whenever Raphael considered this, he would insist that they were done blending these stupid paints and went right ahead painting at the ornament, only to flinch at how badly it came out and end up throwing it to the side. That might explain why Casey had bought him so many of them, really.

"Okay, maybe we ought to stop worrying too much about the green," Donatello suggested as Raphael smashed his fourth ornament to the ground. "Look, you just go ahead and paint the red, black, and white on his outfit, and the brown for the toy sack. I'll work on getting the green the exact shade we need it, okay?"

"Gold."

"What?"

"The toy sack was gold," Raphael insisted. "A murky kinda gold, but still gold."

As though speaking to a child, Donatello brought up, "If gold's murky enough, it looks _brown_. So the toy sack was actually _brown_."

"Shut your beak, wise guy," Raphael shot back. "It was _gold_. I remember because it used to shine in the light."

"That was the veneer that made it shine."

"That was the _gold paint_ that made it shine!"

"Raph, look, whatever," Donatello snapped, trying to be patient. "If you find gold paint, you're welcome to paint it gold. If not, then you're going to have to use another color for it, and brown is the closest thing we've got for that."

"What If I find something else that looks the same?"

"Then you're _colorblind!_"

Frowning as Donatello heatedly tried to get back to his blending, Raphael didn't even bother to think it through. Picking up a tube of purple paint, he growled out, "Colorblind? When I'm about to help you match with your eye mask?"

"What do you-" Donatello began as he glanced up, but then stopped cold as he got a face full of purple paint, sputtering a little as some of it nearly got into his mouth. Hearing Raphael's chuckle, he frowned as he wiped the paint off his face. The mature side of him wanted to simply ignore it, or to at least go for a color that they wouldn't be using. But that didn't matter, since his hand closed around the tube of red paint, and he briskly squeezed a goodly portion of it across Raphael's plastron. "Not so funny on the other end, is it?"

"Hey!" Raphael blurted out over him, wiping at the paint and only managing to spread it around the most lightly-colored part of his body. "That's way more than I put on you, shell-for-brains! Give me a wipe or something so I can rub it off. "

"Later," Donatello told him decisively. "For now, just get that red paint on the ornament before you end up wearing even more of it. I don't want to waste these paints for nothing." Hunching back over the makeshift palette, he continued attempting to get the garish shade of green he needed, determined to ignore Raphael's immaturity.

"Hey, Donnie," Raphael mentioned after a moment. "Was there anything blue on the ornament? A present, maybe, or his eyes?"

" No, Raph," Donatello sighed. "No blue. No orange. No aquamarine. Just red, black, white, brown and/or gold, and that shade of green." By the time he realized why Raphael was asking, he got an unpleasant spurt of blue on his arm, trying at his patience.

By the time they were done, there was no more blue, orange, or aquamarine.

* * *

Christmas Day had arrived, and so far, no one commented on the old family ornament that was somehow subtly different than before.

Raphael and Donatello continued to exchange awkward glances once in a while, but they'd gotten most of the way through opening their presents without Splinter, Michelangelo, or even Leonardo noticing anything being off about the ornament. It surprised them both, considering that they'd been so overly proud of the finished product that they'd hung it up dead front and center on the tree, rather than do the smart thing and hide it in the back. But since nobody asked any questions, they figured they were in the clear for now.

"All right, time for my presents!" Michelangelo declared, scuttling over to the tree and digging out four small square boxes, all about the same size. "I went with a theme this year, bros. Because just doing one looked tacky, and as we all know, I'm not a fan of tact."

As Leonardo offered a forced chuckle at that, Raphael rolled his eyes, inciting an elbowed nudge from Donatello. They'd promised to at least treat Michelangelo decently until they were sure their ornamental switch had worked. As expected, Raphael was having more trouble with it than his brother.

When all of the turtles and Splinter held their own individual box, they tore through the paper, Michelangelo watching on expectantly. Raphael and Donatello both froze when they saw what was in the box, and then turned to glance at one another.

"Oh," Leonardo murmured, reaching into the box. He withdrew a small ornament that had clearly started off as some kind of generic turtle figurine, though a piece of golden twine had been wrapped around it, enabling one to hang it from a tree. What was obviously a handmade blue eye mask had been tied to its face, along with a painfully obviously handmade Santa hat having been glued to its head. "This is… kind of cute, actually."

Raphael and Donatello withdrew theirs, which were almost identical to Leonardo's aside from one wearing a red mask and the other wearing purple. Splinter took out his, which looked as though it was supposed to have been a hamster, but a long pink tail had been added, along with a brown haori similar to the one the rat wore. Seeing him smile in response, Raphael and Donatello followed suit, causing Michelangelo to positively _beam_.

"Cool, huh? I made one for myself, too. I figure we don't have nearly enough ornaments, and the ones that we do have are getting a little stale." Standing up, he opened up a box that held a turtle ornament decked in an orange mask, walking over to the tree. "Like _this_ old thing," he mentioned, plucking a certain green Santa from its branch. "I mean, how old was I when I thought _this_ was a good idea?"

"It was a gift from the heart," Splinter commented as Michelangelo hung the new ornament at the front of the tree. "And for that, well worthy of its spot where we may always see and admire it. But truth be told, I do not think any of us shall be sad to see it disappear to the bottom of the tree."

"_What?!_" Raphael blurted out, only realizing how indignant he looked when Leonardo flinched and looked over at him.

Clearing his throat, Donatello delicately added, "But Sensei, I thought you loved that ornament. You always smile when you look at it and Mikey's always pointing out how proud he is of it."

Michelangelo let out a sharp bark of laughter, bearing absolutely no ill will as he moved around the tree to put it in the back. "Come on, are you kidding? Even _I_ knew that every time he looked at it, he was about to burst out laughing. An artist I might be, but I was more Picasso in my younger years."

"And you've the good grace to admit it," Splinter replied mildly.

Raphael and Donatello took to grimly glaring at one another. Raphael still occasionally found some red when he scrubbed at himself in the shower, and Donatello had needed an entirely new eye mask after the paint war that had ensued while trying to replace that hideous ornament. And now to find that _every_one thought it was hideous….

"I don't know, I kind of liked it," Leonardo admitted.

Before anyone could say anything, a cracking sound could be heard, and they all looked to see that Michelangelo had dropped the green Santa in question, breaking it in two. "Aw, _man_," he murmured, stooping down to pick it up. "It's like he knew his time was over and just jumped out of my hand. What a way to go, bro."

"It was long overdue for it," Splinter returned lightly. "It served us well during its time, but as you are now old enough to make things of a much finer quality, it will not be overly missed."

"Yeah," Michelangelo admitted, standing up as he looked down at the two pieces in his hand, shrugging before moving over to the nearest wastebasket. "Honestly, I never liked the way that came out. But since I didn't have any fleshy-colored paint, green was the only other thing I knew to do. Guess Kermit the Frog was right about it not being easy to be green."

As Donatello made a soft, tortured noise at Michelangelo's reference and at the entire affair in general, Leonardo and Splinter began to get up to place their respective ornaments on the tree. Sharing a helpless glance with Raphael, he shrugged and got up, waiting for the other two to be done before approaching the tree to do the same.

"I just _knew_ I was gonna come outta this feeling like a putz," Raphael grunted under his breath.


End file.
